Small bike-sharing programs sprout across city

When Mayor Richard Daley visited Paris in 2007, he brought back at least one inspiration from the City of Lights: emulating the French capital's extensive bike-sharing system.

Daley was so taken with the program -- which allows subscribers to check out 20,000 bikes around the city and ride them for short trips at no cost -- he was photographed astride one of the sturdy two-wheelers.

But when the first proposals for a Chicago bike-sharing network failed to fit the city's budget, Daley's ambitions went nowhere, even as other cities have moved forward with their own plans and more cycling enthusiasts have flooded Chicago streets during warm months.

To meet some of that growing local demand for bikes, colleges, companies and office buildings are starting their own bike-sharing programs, providing a glimpse of what a citywide plan might look like someday.

At St. Xavier University on the Southwest Side, Daley's photo-op in Paris inspired students to pursue their own bike-sharing program, which finally came to fruition this month. With a swipe of an ID card, students can unlock one of 30 bikes to ride to class or to off-campus sites such as shops and student centers.

"You don't need to have a car on campus if we provide you with bike transportation. It's a healthy alternative," said Paul Matthews, assistant vice president for facilities management for St. Xavier. "We're the guinea pigs, is what it amounts to."

The St. Xavier system cost about $150,000 to set up, Matthews said. But across town at Loyola University's Far North Side campus, a similar program was launched this month with a budget of only $4,000.

Tony Giron, a junior at Loyola, and the Loyola Bike Club refurbished a fleet of 14 abandoned bikes and started checking them out for free to students who need a ride around campus or to classes in downtown Chicago. Each day since the program launched, every bike has been checked out, he said, and the program is already looking to add more two-wheelers.

"There's definitely a need, a proven need," Giron said. "It's providing a free means of transportation as well as an environmentally friendly form of transportation thorough the lakefront path."

Some Chicago workplaces have begun offering bikes for their tenants or employees, from the Sears Tower program that provides six bikes and accessories -- such as helmets and locks -- to the Field Museum's fleet of five Cannondale bikes that Field workers can ride into the Loop for meetings or along the lakefront for a break.

Kevin Swagel, a collections assistant at the Field, said he checks out a pool bike two or three times a week, riding to Northerly Island on his lunch hour to indulge his bird-watching hobby. "I just gobble down my lunch real quick or take it with me, sign out the bike and take off," Swagel, 49, said. "It's just like total freedom."

These small bike-sharing programs would pale in comparison to a city-sponsored program, were it ever to be implemented. Though smaller than the Paris system, the city of Chicago's 2007 request for proposals still called for up to 1,500 bikes.

That request drew two interested parties: JCDecaux, the French company that was awarded the CTA bus shelter contract in 2001; and OYBike, an English company that operates a bike-sharing program in London and is the supplier for the St. Xavier system.

But neither of their initial plans fit the city's needs, said Chicago Department of Transportation spokesman Brian Steele. The JCDecaux proposal, for example, required the city to buy bikes and kiosks and would have cost more than $5 million, Steele said.

"Both proposals required a larger financial contribution from the city than we were anticipating," Steele said. "We are looking to have the program be a low-cost or possibly even no-cost option for the city."

One option would be for companies to pay for bikes and kiosks in exchange for the right to sell advertising on the equipment. That model was used by Washington, D.C., last year with a 100-bike sharing program funded by media giant Clear Channel.

Private funding may not be viable with advertising dollars currently scarce, said Rob Sadowsky, executive director of Chicago-based Active Transportation Alliance. "The way the economy is today, my suspicion is that there's not enough ad revenue being generated in Chicago to justify the subsidy of a bike-share program," Sadowsky said.

At the same time, a system based largely on public funds could be unpalatable to a cash-strapped city and lead to rental prices that could discourage users, he said.

An alternative model is being put together in Minneapolis-St. Paul, using federal transportation funding and a non-profit business plan. Called "Nice Ride," the program will launch next spring with about 1,000 bicycles at 75 kiosks around the downtown, uptown and university areas of the Twin Cities.

"The growth is just incredible. [Bike-sharing] is going to be on every continent in a few years, and it's pretty amazing what's happening," said Bill Dossett, who is helping to build the Nice Ride program. "So we're just excited to be a part of that."